Shadowing Practice: THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES #73 – Police Lights - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Rusty Quill Presents The Magnus Archives
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Episode 73, Police Lights.
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Here.
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Thanks.
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I assume it didn't go well, then.
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We lost Altman.
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Just wasn't paying attention.
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I don't know what they're going to tell his family.
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Guess it could have been worse, though, if I hadn't talked to you first. So, thanks.
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I'm surprised you're here.
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Surely you have a lot of paperwork after something like that.
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A lot of forms to sign.
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They've given us a few days' compassionate leave.
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I think they want us out of the way while they figure out the official version of what happened.
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Well, I'd like to hear the real one if you're ready.
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Yeah.
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How much context do you need?
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You said it started with a kidnapping case.
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Yeah.
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Callum Brody.
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Twelve.. twelve years old.
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Disappeared from his home in Dalston three weeks ago.
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Sitter was asleep when the mother came home.
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The front door was open.
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There was no sign of him.
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There was no forced entry, so it started out as a missing persons case,
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but they got a witness claiming he'd seen three unknown figures entering Brodie's home that night, so it was kicked up to serious crime.
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There was some back and forth with Kidnap Squad, since no ransom demand had been made, but not much progress in terms of finding the kid.
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I only found out about all this when we were suiting up yesterday.
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The Brodie case had nothing to do with my department or my borough.
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When me and Daisy got the call that we were being brought in for an operation to recover the kid,
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it was totally out of the blue.
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The sergeant in charge had to brief us in the van.
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I had no idea why we'd been called in until I looked at the other officers involved
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and saw a good few of them.
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They were fellow signees of a Section 31.
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Whatever we were heading towards, it was going to be weird.
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I think the sergeant in charge must have been sectioned as well, but I didn't know him.
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It's not too surprising though.
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I mean, it's not like any of us have a full list of sectioned officers, but one must exist somewhere.
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It looked like most of the others had made the same connection and none of us were feeling right about it.
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I mean, we had a counter -terrorist firearms squad with us, which didn't exactly put my mind at ease.
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That said, I wasn't exactly sad we might be getting some sectioned firearms officers, but it was just a lot, you know?
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The briefing was pretty short.
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We were told that Callum Brody had been found
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and it was suspected he was being held by a man named Maxwell Rayner with an unknown number of accomplices.
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There were suspicions that there might be cult involvement.
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That's when I phoned you.
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And did the lights help at all?
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Oh, I'm getting to that.
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I told the sergeant, and he didn't even ask me where I'd gotten the information.
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He just nodded and told everyone to load up on torches.
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The firearms team wasn't short on tactical gear, so by the time we headed inside, we had two or three heavy -duty flashlights each.
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I had four.
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The building was in an industrial complex up in Haringey.
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It was a two -story brick building with a weathered sign claiming it belonged to Outer Bay Shipping.
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We were instructed to go inside in teams of two, with one armed officer paired with one sectioned.
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You have to understand, that's massively against protocol.
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But I guess they wanted to be sure
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that none of the firearms team encountered anything weird without being accompanied by anyone experienced.
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I looked around to see if the others were going to make anything of it, but no one made a peep.
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I think everyone knew that this was about as far from a normal operation as they came.
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I was paired with an older guy.
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Goodman, I think his name was, though we didn't really talk.
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The way he carried his weapon in the van, I could tell he'd been handling it a while,
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but I couldn't help but notice his hands were shaking slightly as we made our way around the building.
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We were going in through the loading dock at the rear, and as we approached the security lights that lit the rest of the estate,
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they seemed to get dimmer.
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Well, not dimmer, really.
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They just didn't illuminate the place as much as they should have.
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Aside from a small pool of white light directly below, the darkness around them didn't seem to be affected.
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I didn't have much time to think about it before the order came down and we were going in.
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I cut the padlock on the metal gate and slid it up while Goodman gave me some cover.
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The inside seemed normal.
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Pallets of boxes were neatly lined up on shelves around the loading bay, and the heavy lamps overhead gave me a look was plenty of light.
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We started to make a sweep of the area, eyes peeled for anything that looked out of place.
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I took a second to check a few of the larger boxes, but they didn't contain anything remarkable.
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Mostly sheets of plastic for manufacturing, although some were full of copper piping or paint.
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And that's when I heard the scream.
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It came from behind one of the shelves to my left, and it didn't sound like a cry of fear or pain.
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It was a scream of rage, almost animal -like, and when I turned, I saw a figure moving behind me.
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It was only for a second, but it seemed to be dressed head to toe in black, like a leotard or one of those morph suits.
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It was hard to say for sure, as it was less than a second before it darted back behind the shelves and Goodman opened fire.
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I hadn't prepared myself for it, and a sudden gunshot sent a jolt of pain shooting through my head as my eardrums rang with the noise.
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Goodman called something to me, but I couldn't make out a word of it.
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I just followed him as he ran around to where the figure had disappeared to.
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There was no sign of it,
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although a small spray of fresh blood told me that my jumping new partner's aim had been too wide of the mark.
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We started to hear sporadic gunfire from the rest of the building.
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I mean, it was basically all I could hear at that point, as everything else was still a muffled, high -pitched whine.
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I was worried
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Goodman might panic at this, but to his credit, he seemed to have pulled himself together,
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and we finished the sweep of the loading bay before heading through to the rest of the building.
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I saw a handful of armed officers heading up the stairs to the upper floor
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and I was going to follow them when I felt a tug on my arm.
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Goodman was, he was saying something and pointing towards the other direction.
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I saw a pair of uniforms and a face I recognised.
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Leo Altman, one of the sectioned officers from up in Waltham Forest.
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I'd met him once before
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when Daisy took me out for some very quiet drinks with a few other section cops she knew.
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I remembered him being one of the friendlier ones, though he still stopped short of telling any stories.
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Leo was stood with an armed officer that I didn't know.
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From her lack of trigger discipline it looked like she was either very new or seriously rattled.
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There was staring down a long metal staircase that seemed to lead into what must have been the building's basement.
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The briefing hadn't mentioned anything about a basement and it was clear they weren't entirely sure how to proceed.
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When me and Goodman joined them it seemed to make up their minds and with a quick nod to us
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Leo and his partner started to head down.
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I didn't want to follow and I could see that
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Goodman wasn't too keen either but we weren't just going to leave them without backup so down we went.
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At the bottom of the stairs was a door.
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It was old and made of steel that started to rust around the edges but it wasn't right.
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You know how when the lights are turned on in a room and you can see it from outside
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like a thin line of light leaking under the doorway.
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Well it was like that except what seemed to seep out from underneath wasn't light,
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it was shadow, like if darkness was somehow shining from behind it.
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As I got closer I started to hear something, I couldn't really tell what it was under the buzzing in my ears
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but the best way I could describe it is that it sounded like a waterfall but slowed right down.
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A steady flowing crash and churn but deep and drawn out.
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I wanted to ask the others if they heard it as well but Leo was already moving to open the door.
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I barely had time to get my torch out.
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Glad I did though because as the door opened every light in the building went dark.
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That moment I was in complete darkness had to be one of the longest seconds of my life.
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I felt like I'd gone blind.
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Not just my eyes, but everything.
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Like every sense I had was severed and the only thing I could feel was a wave of nausea.
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It seemed like for that second I wasn't anywhere that light had ever reached.
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Then I clicked the button on my torch and the beam cut right through it.
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The flashlight was weak.
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Nothing like the power I would have expected from the heavy bulb, but the faint glow was enough to bring me back to myself.
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I shone it behind me over the pale panicked faces of the others
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and as it touched each of them I saw them start and reach for their own torches.
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Soon four pale beams were struggling out into the thick aggressive gloom.
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I turned around trying to shine the light on the wall or even the door we came in from.
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Anything that would give me a sense of the room we were standing in
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but it just disappeared into the pitch dark in all directions.
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Thinking about it now, I realise we never actually walked through the door.
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Small flecks of black dust floated in the air like inky snow.
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They moved gently through the torchlight and they never seemed to settle on the ground.
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And I began to realise how cold it was.
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Everything was so still, and the only sound was the same dull roar from up ahead of us.
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I don't know how long we stood there, but when my torch sputtered and died, I knew we didn't have long.
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I took out another and turned it on.
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The light seemed even fainter than the first one.
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Still, it was something and we started to walk forward, or at least what we assumed was forward.
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If anyone said anything, I didn't hear it.
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The black dust danced in front of us, but it never seemed to actually touch us or land on our clothing.
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There was no smell at all here.
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The building above us had smelled of sawdust, old metal and industrial cleaner, but down here there was nothing.
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I didn't shine my torch upwards, I didn't want to see if there was a roof above our heads.
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By this point we had easily walked the whole length of the building several times and still hadn't seen anything.
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The roar was getting louder and louder until it was all that was in my head.
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The four of us were all on our second or third torches by that point, and I could feel that I was starting to panic.
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There was a scream building up inside of me, clawing its way up my throat.
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Actually, you know what?
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I might have been screaming.
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I don't know.
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It was impossible to tell over the noise and the thick, choking darkness.
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Then Goodland's flashlight beam hit something ahead of us, and it all went to hell.
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I think it took about five seconds.
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Everything seemed to happen at once
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and only going over it in the reports afterwards was I able to process what I saw.
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Five seconds and everything was over but I'll try and describe it in as much detail as I can.
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Goodman's torch beam had landed on an old man.
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He was tall but I couldn't say much more than that.
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His body was hidden in the fault of a robot of some sort.
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It was the same colour as the dust that had filled the air
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and seemed to move and shift in the same way.
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His white hair was thin and wild, covering an unkempt face and a scraggly beard.
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His eyes were milky white, I think he was blind.
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From the description the sergeant had given us, I was sure this was Maxwell Rayner.
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Next to him was an old chair that looked like it could have been from a dinner table.
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The wood was stained, covered in dark mould and tied to it with thin metal wire was Callum Brodie.
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The kid's eyes were blank though, not clouded like the old man's, and his face was locked in a silent scream.
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Rainer was facing him, thin bony hands raised to his face.
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Something was flowing out of his mouth.
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It looked like ink but it flowed more like a heavy fog than any sort of liquid.
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It dripped down his forearms and onto the floor where it rolled towards Callum,
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climbing up the chair and oozing across the boy's body towards his face.
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It was moving slowly and it just reached his chest.
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The roaring sound seemed to come as it convulsed out of the old man's throat.
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Then Goodman opened fire.
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The muzzle flash seemed impossibly bright as it cut through the dark and
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I could swear that for a second the room it lit up was not a basement but a cathedral.
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He let off three shots, in a quick burst, and every one of them hit Rainer's square in the chest.
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His robe twitched violently as he staggered backwards, and all the dark liquid suddenly washed down onto the floor in a single movement, leaving Callum untouched.
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It still gushed from his mouth though, and as the shots tore through him,
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he spun about and an arc of the dark substance flew through the air.
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Altman had started running towards them as soon as he had seen the kid
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and was almost at a chair when a wave of it spewed out.
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A few droplets hit him on the cheek and he started to howl and claw at his face.
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Goodman fired again at Rayna, dropping him to the ground and the horrendous noise stopped suddenly, leaving only Leo's cries of pain.
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The lights came on all at once
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and in the sudden painful brightness none of us had time
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to do anything as a woman who hadn't been there a moment ago ran up to Leo.
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She wore a robe similar to the old man's
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and by the time any of us had seen the knife in her hand she had buried it in Altman's throat.
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More gunshots, this time from the officer who had partnered with Leo but she was too slow.
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By the time the woman with the knife had been dropped he was already bleeding out on the floor.
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Five seconds, two dead kidnappers, one dead police officer and silence.
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We were standing in a small basement room lit by dingy fluorescent bulbs, no sign of the black liquid or any sort of dust.
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The kid seemed fine, I mean I'm sure he'll need a lot of counselling
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but he didn't seem physically any worse for wear.
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Goodman went to untie him while I ran to check on Altman.
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It was too late, of course, but as I looked at his still cold face, I saw his eyes were a milky white.
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The rest of the squad arrived a few seconds later and helped take us back out to the van.
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After that, it was all questions, debriefed cups of coffee I never quite got around to drinking, and section 31 forms.
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Lots of them.
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All in all, there were five people killed in that building, including Leo Altman.
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Aside from Rainer and the woman, who was identified from an old report as Natalie Ennis,
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two more were shot and killed when they attacked some of the other officers.
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Three more were subdued and arrested, but as far as I know, they still haven't said a word.
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God knows how they're going to process them with all the secrecy around the operation, but thankfully that's not my problem.
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I think they were connected to that cult group from way back, the Church of the Divine Whatever.
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The People's Church of the Divine Host.
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Rayna was their leader back in the early 90s.
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I have a few statements related to them, if you're interested.
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Natalie Ennis was actually one of the...
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No, I'm not interested, not even a little.
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I've been thinking a lot over the past few days, and I'm done.
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With the police, with Section 31, all of it.
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I wanted to tell you in person, and give you the statement.
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It seemed the least I could do.
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You're really quitting?
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Yeah, and you should too.
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But this place, it's not right.
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Goodbye, John.
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Bacira, wait.
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What about the tapes?
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What?
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The tapes from Gertrude's case.
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Is there any way I get...
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No, I suppose not.
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Well, that seems to close the book on Maxwell Rayner.
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Maybe the whole
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People's Church of the Divine Host.
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I can't help but feel I've got the last chapter of a story and I don't even know the title.
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At least I hope it's the last chapter.
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I still can't find much about the company
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Outer Bay Shipping.
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Looks like a shell corporation, but tracking corporate ownership is not something I'm skilled at.
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I'm disappointed with Miss Hussain's decision.
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It's not exactly a surprise, though.
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I've thought about quitting myself.
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It's not an option, of course.
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I'm in far too deep now.
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I get the impression that to quit would be giving up whatever small protection I seem to have here.
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I just wish… I don't know.
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Oddly enough, all I can think about is how did the police know where Rayna was keeping the boy?
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Basira didn't seem to know, and the church clearly wasn't expecting the police to arrive.
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With a few exceptions, Rayna managed to stay off the grid for two decades.
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How did they find him now?
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Someone must have known what was happening and tipped them off, and I don't think it was anyone inside that building.
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End supplement.
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The Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by RustyQuill .com
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and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non -Commercial Sharealike 4 .0 International License.
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Today's episode was written and performed by Jonathan Sims Produced by Alexander J.
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Newell and Mike LeBeau And directed by Alexander J.
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Newell To subscribe, view associated material and make donations
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Visit RustyQuill .com Rate and review us on iTunes Tweet us at TheRustyQuill Visit us on Facebook
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or email us at mail at RustyQuill .com Join our community on the forums via the website
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Or on Reddit at r slash
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The Magnus Archives Thanks for listening
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I don't know.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES – Police Lights”. This video has 263 sentences and 3300 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:26. The speaker talks at a natural 179 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| torch noun | /ˈtɔːtʃ/ | A stick of wood or plant fibres twisted together, with one end soaked in a flammable substance such as resin or tallow and set on fire, which is held in the… |
| scream verb | /skɹiːm/ | To cry out with a shrill voice; to utter a sudden, sharp outcry, or shrill, loud cry, as in fright or extreme pain; to screech, to shriek. |
| thin adjective | /ˈθɪn/ | Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite. |
| dust noun | /dʌst/ | Fine, dry particles of matter found in the air and covering the surface of objects, typically consisting of soil lifted up by the wind, pollen, hair, fiber… |
| darkness noun | /ˈdɑɹk.nɪs/ | The state of being dark; lack of light; the absolute or comparative absence of light. |
| basement noun | /ˈbeɪsmənt/ | A floor of a building below ground level. |
| beam noun | /ˈbiːm/ | Any large piece of timber or iron long in proportion to its thickness, and prepared for use. |
| sergeant noun | /ˈsɑɹ.d͡ʒənt/ | A UK army rank with NATO code OR-6, senior to corporal and junior to warrant officer ranks. |
| firearm noun | /ˈfaɪəɹˌɑː(ɹ)m/ | A personal weapon that uses explosive powder to propel a projectile often made of lead. |
| liquid noun | /ˈlɪk.wɪd/ | A substance that is flowing, and keeping no shape, such as water; a substance of which the molecules, while not tending to separate from one another like those… |
| throat noun | /ˈθɹoʊt/ | The front part of the neck. |
| shine verb | /ʃaɪn/ | To emit or reflect light so as to glow. |
| disappear verb | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | To vanish. |
| shelf noun | /ʃɛlf/ | A flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects. |
| thick adjective | /θɪk/ | Relatively great in extent from one surface to the opposite in its smallest solid dimension. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. |
| come down verb | To descend, fall down, collapse. |
| cut through verb | To take a shortcut through. |
| draw out verb | To make (something) last for more time than is necessary; to prolong; to extend. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| get around to verb | To eventually begin or return to some task. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
| going over noun | An inspection, examination, review, or investigation. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- They've given us a few days' compassionate leave.
- How much context do you need?
- That's when I phoned you.
- You have to understand, that's massively against protocol.
- I felt like I'd gone blind.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was kicked · had been made · being brought |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | They've given · haven't said · I've thought |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 74 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, I'm, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, throat /ˈθɹoʊt/, thick /θɪk/, clothing /ˈkloʊðɪŋ/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shine /ʃaɪn/, shelf /ʃɛlf/, wash /wɑʃ/, flash /flæʃ/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/
- Long words — get the stress right: disappointed /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/, accompany /əˈkʌm.pə.ni/, violently /ˈvaɪ(ə)ləntli/, compassionate /kəmˈpæʃənət/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like torch, scream, thin.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.